Although it’s very little to do with my professional life (or at least, I would like to believe it is very little to do ewith it), in my short bio on the main anitapetho.com site ( a.k.a Anita Pethő’s official website) I mentioned at the end of the post, that I’m childless and unmarried.
Knowing that I might provoke some misogynist blokes with it (how dare I not shame myself for not fullfilling the only purpose of being a woman, or some similar bullshits), I would like to say a few things about it.
I have a namesake, another Anita Pethő, who happened to be the wife of a well-known Hungarian news presenter. Actually there are dozens of Anita Pethős. Although it’s not a very common name, but, of course, not a rare one either. Being the a partner (not necessarily being married to them in the traditional way) of a public figure means more appearances in tabloid magazines, the type of websites are very well embedded in the infinitive web of digital textes.
Therefore, if someone is googling my name, besides of those hundreds of online publications I’ve written in the last 15 or more years, a personal info appears in that small info box about the other Anita Pethő’s marital status, and nothing indicates, that we are two different persons.
My professional life and her personal one just melted into eah other.
And, what? -you might ask. There is the scientist Brian Cox and the actor Brian Cox. The comedian David Mitchell and the novelist David Mitchell (although, the comedian used to write books too), the historian Tom Holland and the actor Tom Holland, the American superstar Will Smith and the British actor and scriptwriter Will Smith, and so on.
Yes, I know. But did you noticed, there are all men with easily distinguishable professional career?
One of the most important lesson I’ve learned in my younger years, that a woman is always measured by her private life. It was especially hurtfull to realise in a(n un)professional context: even people I was working with, while creating those beforementioned hundreds of articles, did not really want to know what I’m good in, what are my research topics, why I care about certain academic discussions more than other, but were eager to figure out which man’s property I am.
And that’s the other thing. In the eyes of the world I’m a nice, polite, well-mannered, intelligent and elegant woman with a pretty face, long legs, very feminine hourglass-shaped body and two very-very huge boobs. Every man would like to own such a premium category doll have a partner like me, right?
Oh, what a waste not being someones’s pretty little property!
( Shame! Shame! Ding-ding-ding-ding. Shame! Shame!)
When I talked to my mother about that Google thing a few months ago, it turned out, many of her aquaintances think actually I am the wife of that news presenter person. They might not be aware how I look nowadways, but they surely remember, that I was a nice girl always with good notes in the school, also went to university, therefore such a “career” achivement, like marrying a high profile public person sounds reasonable.
Good girl, good girl, well done, you know where your place is in society!
But that’s the problem.
I’m proud of not be able to find my place in society.
I’m proud of all my battles I’ve been fighting to protect my integrity, my own personality and not succumb to stupid gender requirements. (Especially those ones targeting particulary young women with big boobs – see above the thoughts about [not] being someone’s pretty [sex]doll.)
Yes, I’ve been a single woman for way longer periods in my life then being in a (sort of) relationship. But not because I’m a such a loser not being able to catch a man (and tide to myself with force – unfortunatelly, many people would considert this behaviour as “normal”) , despite all those advantages of my appearance, but because sometimes (quite often) I just feel myself better alone.
Yes, I hate when collegues are more interested in my sexual life than my professional one, not because I want to desperatelly hide something (a different sexual orientation, perhaps? -oh, relly sorry to dissapoint all the gossip girls, but I’m still very much heterosexual), but becasuse I’m deeply disgusted, that my work doesn’t get the right deserved acknowledgement, because people want to judge me first by which man I share my be with, and then, maybe, but just maybe, they might pay (a little ) attention to my intellectual achievements.
And in a world, where even those men I was dating, especially during my mid-30s, had always that tiny little second thought, that my outspoken wish not to be married and not to have children might be just a childish and naive trick to try to catch them; and in a world where I always have to fight to be acknowledge as an individual with her own personality, her own feelings, her own thoughts, her own intellectual achievements, her own ambitions,
it would be a very big handicap in life for any child having a mother like me.
(And I did not even mention yet, that I have also a mild autism spectrum disorder, which makes everything even more complicated.)
I’m OK with the fact, that my life is about these battles, and I’m very proud of every little (and usually invisible for others) victories. But I don’t want to drag any innocent little human being into this constant state of warfare between me and the entire world.
Long story short,
Lead picture from the film Elizabeth (1998) , when in the final scene she walks among her subjects, right after saying her famous line: “Observe, Lord Burghley, I am married… to England”, which I, with a small alterations (“I amm married to my ambitions”, “I am married to my troubles”, etc), used to quote frequently, and it very much suits the topic of this post.
